


Here's What I've Got (The Reasons Why Our Marriage Might Work)

by marauders_groupie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Almost Kiss, Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Exes, Exes to Lovers, F/M, Flashbacks, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, and sometimes you gotta leave to grow and then fit together better, asdghdkl my fic gave me feels, ciao!, for some people love is just complicated, tl;dr Actors & exes & filming a movie in Tuscany
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-12-27 00:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21109688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauders_groupie/pseuds/marauders_groupie
Summary: Three years after they've broken off their engagement, Clarke and Bellamy meet again in Tuscany to film a love story.Bellarke Bingo prompt:Actor ex-fiances who are cast as the romantic leads in an angsty drama that culminates in a wedding. They both have to film this wedding while being painfully aware that in another lifetime, in a different universe, this could have been them.*"You don't drink anymore. You film one movie a year. Who are you?"There's humor in his eyes, but it still bites at her. Why couldn't it have been this easy before?They are two people who used to love each other very much, but they've changed. His words no longer pack a punch. Clarke isn't desperate to fight back anymore.Now, they can just be two people catching up in the sun.





	1. Here's What I've Got

**Author's Note:**

> When I was writing this fic, it felt like I was breaking up with someone I loved very much. When I finished it, I was ready for the whole breakup package: new haircut, gin, and sappy love songs. 
> 
> What I'm trying to say is: I don't know who sent in this prompt, but thank you. I love you. It was an Experience.
> 
> Enjoy! :)

_ Here’s what I’ve got, the reasons why our marriage _ _might work: _

_ Because you wear pink but write poems about bullets and gravestones. Because you yell at your keys when you lose them, and laugh, loudly, at your own jokes. Because you can hold a pistol, gut a pig. Because you memorize songs, even commercials from thirty years back and sing them when vacuuming. You have soft hands. Because when we moved, the contents of what you packed were written inside the boxes. Because you think swans are overrated. Because you drove me to the train station. You drove me to Minneapolis. You drove me to Providence. Because you underline everything you read, and circle the things you think are important, and put stars next to the things you think I should think are important, and write notes in the margins about all the people you’re mad at and my name almost never appears there. Because you make that pork recipe you found in the Frida Kahlo Cookbook. Because when you read that essay about Rilke, you underlined the whole thing except the part where Rilke says love means to deny the self and to be consumed in flames. Because when the lights are off, the curtains drawn, and an additional sheet is nailed over the windows, you still believe someone outside can see you.  
And one day five summers ago, when you couldn’t put gas in your car, when your fridge was so empty—not even leftovers or condiments— there was a single twenty-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew, which you paid for with your last damn dime _ _ because you once overheard me say that I liked it._

**Matthew Olzmann**

* * *

There is one particular memory Clarke recalls every time someone mentions Bellamy Blake.

They are twenty years old, and sitting on the quad of Arkadia College. His hands are in her hair, her face is nestled into the crook of his neck.

They are so in love it makes her heart clench.

"You ever think about what's going to happen to us, Bellamy?"

His baritone laugh rumbles against her chest. He's hers, hers, all hers. Like an animal, she wants to come closer to his heat and burrow into him.

"We're going to make it big. Obviously."

At twenty, it's exactly what she wants to hear. She wants to succeed. Wants the Oscar nominations, wants the reviews to commemorate the fact that she puts all of herself into every part.

"I can't wait."

Five years later, they do make it big. 

Her face graces the covers of Cosmopolitan, and his freckles stain GQ.

However, they both forgot that making it big came with one caveat:

They would become small.

***

"I'm fine, I swear."

"I still think it's a bad idea."

"I know, Wells. But I can't avoid him forever. Hollywood is actually a small place."

Clarke Griffin takes a deep breath and puts the kettle on.

Outside, LA is waking up to the tune of traffic; car horns and catastrophes.

In her apartment, it feels like summer in Tuscany, which is coincidentally what she will be dealing with in less than twenty-four hours.

"It's been three years," she acquiesces finally, dropping a shirt into her suitcase. Her dog protests and Clarke smiles. "It wasn't… We both know we weren't meant to be."

The long nights, bitter fights. By the time the hurricane had passed, they both wanted it to be over.

You could only survive on spite for so long.

"Just be careful, okay?"

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, mom. Now, will you or won't you come babysit my dog?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

She's on the plane before she can blink, LA glittering below her on a red eye to Rome. 

The script is heavy in her hands when she takes it, and the woman in the seat next to her eyes it warily.

"Are you an actress?"

"You could say that," Clarke replies, shooting the woman a rueful smile. The best part she ever played was herself.

Bellamy told her that.

The script itself is good. She doesn't know a lot about Emori and John Murphy, but she's seen enough of their movies to trust them.

"It's a story just like ours," she said when they invited her to audition. They even flew from London to LA to have her read for the part. 

Grinned like the edge of a blade when she did.

"That's the point. No two people in the world could play it like you and Bellamy Blake."

It hurt, but it was a good script. It was a good role, one where she could do what she's always been acting for: light up her dark parts and bring them out in the open.

The press called her a method actress, her performances raw.

Even after they broke up, she and Bellamy were always close by in articles. Their acting styles were too similar not to be. They didn't know how to stop pouring, escaping.

But until now, they'd never acted together.

Ultimately, she said "yes" for the art of it. For the chance to say someone else's words better than her own.

"Has he agreed?"

Emori nodded. "As soon as he read the script."

If he could do it, so could she. 

***

When she arrives in Rome, there is a man waiting for her at the airport. He introduces himself as Nathan Miller, and that's as far as their conversation goes.

She pages through the script in the back seat of the cherry red Alfa Romeo, drinks chilled orange juice as if that's going to tamp the heat like wine used to.

"Bad habits," Bellamy had told her once, frowning at the pills she took so she could knock herself unconscious.

Their years in Hollywood were full of everything. 

She was overflowing like a sink, drinking coffee to get her up, and popping pills to take her down. She was gushing with it all, it was too much and not enough.

Now she stays away, and drinks juice to unwind. It's growth, she supposes. 

"Where will we be staying?" she asks Miller, leaning between the front seats. 

Outside, Tuscany is glowing with rolling hills. The air smells like vineyards and honey.

"Murphy and Emori said you were going to be in the main villa."

"But that's _ the set_."

He rolls his eyes, but it's fond. "You know it's all about realism with them."

She knows, which is why she didn't bat an eye at the dinner scene. Her heart flipped when she read it, but she didn't bat an eye.

Now she hums and leans back.

"Gorgeous place."

Miller smiles in the rearview mirror.

"Wait till you see the villa."

She's wearing her best sundress and a hat her mother chose and yet, standing in the courtyard of the estate, she feels small.

The villa is old - all terracotta rooftops and towering balconies blossoming with flowers. She looks over her shoulder and her eyes meet the slope cascading into the Arno. The river runs languidly, as slow as the world feels.

"Clarke! Welcome!"

Somehow, Emori in her ripped jeans fits the scene better than Clarke does. The woman embraces her and anxiety creeps up her throat.

_ I shouldn't have come._

"Come on in, you'll love the place."

She loves it already, the patio with the gazebo that overlooks the orchard. The sun-kissed tiles on the front porch. The pool, empty save for leaves that haven't been cleaned in decades.

This house tells a story, and Clarke isn't sure it's one she wants to hear.

Inside, heat gives way to cool air that makes her nerves stand on edge. She can almost feel the electric current of him pulling her in. 

"I see you dressed for the part, Princess."

His voice is as smooth as it had always been. Capable of making her come with a single word, capable of helping her fall asleep even when she was at her worst.

Clarke turns around and her heart stops.

Bellamy is smiling at her, and then it's like nothing ever happened. 

He wraps her in his arms and he smells just like he always did; musk, safety, _ Bellamy._

She returns the hug because this is good, and she's missed him. She's missed him more than she's allowed herself to realize.

"You look good," he whispers into her ear, private and only for her to hear. 

When they part, he's beaming at her. 

This is different, she knows immediately. It has never felt like this.

"Glad to see we're not going to have to break up any fights," Murphy's drawl comes in as he struts down the hallway. 

Bellamy rolls his eyes at their director, and Clarke suddenly gets the urge to let out a hysterical laugh. 

"No need to worry, Murphy. It's not like that with me and Clarke."

Is it not?

Haven't their fights woken up more than a few neighbors, made the walls shake, and turned their apartment into a home so cold it burned right down to her core?

Now Bellamy smiles and it's like it's all gone.

They are escorted to the dining room and she remembers the scene now.

_ [Dining room, they are eating quietly.]_

_ She: Pass me the salt, please._

_ [His chair scrapes. He's angry but quiet. Places the salt in front of her plate. She notices the way he moves, tightly wound. Controlled. On the verge.]_

_ She: Is something wrong?_

_ [Bitter laugh.]_

_ He: Is anything right?_

She tries not to let herself see it, but she knows how it plays out. She knows how _ she'll _ play it, and how his voice will leak with poison as he delivers the line.

They've been there.

"It's a gorgeous place you've set us up in," Bellamy says, looking around them. He looks openly fascinated with the walls. "Wish every movie I did made me have to sleep in a villa."

He looks different now. Makes the entire table laugh, leans on the wood so sure of himself that there could never be any room left for doubt.

He used to be wary. Now he looks fearless.

Not in the sense that he doesn't care what will happen, but in the sense that he knows he will handle it, no matter what.

It's a good look on him.

"When do we start filming?" she asks finally, having torn up her handkerchief to bits. The food is great, but she's too tired to eat.

Everyone stops, forks and knives levitating above their plates.

Murphy breaks the spell. "Straight to business, Griffin. That's what I love about you." 

He grins and the world is back to normal. Bellamy is no longer eyeing her like a wild animal.

"We start tomorrow. We'll need to run a few checks, but we should be done in a month if it all works out."

Murphy and Emori work fast, that much is known. 

Their method isn't spoken about. When journalists ask, they always smile quizzically, but they make movies that are perfectly complete within three months of filming.

Actors have been quoted saying: "Working with them is the closest thing to magic."

Now she wants to see that magic, but it's escaping her. They tell them to get some rest and all Clarke wants to do is run away into acting.

When they're alone, she doesn't know how to act.

She doesn't _ want _to act anymore.

"Do you want to practice the lines with me?" she finds herself asking, lingering in front of the door to her room. Their rooms are adjacent, and it figures.

Bellamy shoots her a grin.

"I was thinking something more along the lines of getting a drink."

Clarke's shoulders slump with relief. "Or a drink. Although… I don't drink alcohol anymore."

If she didn't know him so well, she wouldn't notice the surprise on his face - there and gone in a split second, replaced by a kind smile.

"Orange juice it is then."

They take their glasses out to the terrace. Crew members are milling around the property, arranging and rearranging scene marks.

Bellamy takes a seat next to her and she wants to put her feet up in his lap, this gorgeous man, this beautiful Tuscan sun.

Then she realizes she can't, and it hurts more than it should.

"You haven't filmed anything in a year," he deadpans, and Clarke nearly chokes on her juice.

"No, I- I haven't."

He's changed but his eyes are still the same. Inquisitive.

"How come?"

When they were together, he jokingly called her a movie mill.

She could knock out ten movies in a year, desperate not to waste any opportunities. One month she was a broken teen, the other she was playing a superhero.

It came at a cost. But then again, everything in her life did.

"I'm choosing my projects more carefully these days. If it doesn't intrigue me, I'm not going to do it."

He leans back in his chair and considers it for a minute. His hands are still solid. Good hands she could rely on, even when they fought.

"You don't drink anymore. You film one movie a year. Who _ are _you?"

She can see the humor in his eyes, but it bites at her. Why is it so easy with him now?

Why couldn't it have been this easy before?

She smiles anyway, and deflects. "What about you? I never got the chance to congratulate you on the Oscar nom."

Bellamy's features break into a smile.

They are two people who used to love each other very much, but they've changed. His words no longer pack a punch. Clarke isn't desperate to fight back anymore.

Now, they can just be two people catching up in the sun. 

Condensation slips off her glass and leaves stains on her dress, making him grab a handkerchief and dab it away.

They laugh until it's time for dinner, and it doesn't remind her of anything.

This is good, and most of what she remembers was bad.

***

_ [They are standing on the porch. She is getting in his face and He is smirking.]_

_ She: This is as much my house as it is yours._

_ He: Try that again, Princess. You were the one who left._

The first few days of shooting are arduous. 

There is nothing to hide behind. Her makeup is minimal, her character's clothes casual. 

"We want to emphasize the story. You two are only vessels for it," Emori explains and everyone on the set nods.

Clarke wants to scream.

Then she does, getting right into Bellamy's face and screaming out her lines at him.

But something is not right.

"Clarke, can you try that again?" Murphy asks, Emori frowning next to him. 

Above her, Bellamy looks concerned for a fraction of the second. Then he's back to his smirking face when Murphy says: "Rolling!"

It takes them ten takes to give up, Miller handing Clarke a bottle of water, and everyone leaving for an early lunch.

Her words used to pack a punch. Now she's screaming at Bellamy but it feels futile. 

It _ looks _futile.

She understands her character and understands the story, but no matter how hard she tries, the words come out wrong.

"What's up, Princess?"

Bellamy takes a seat on the steps next to her. His voice is quiet, different from his character's. 

Unlike her, he knows where to draw a line between fact and fiction.

That has never been her strong suit. Every character she's played left a mark on her; she was exposed so she could be receptive, and it left her scarred.

"As far as I can remember, you never had trouble screaming at me."

She shoots him a quick, rueful smile, and then he's pressing closer to her. His arm around her shoulders, pulling her in.

"Come on, Clarke. Talk to me."

"It's so easy with you now," it comes bursting out, tears already pricking at her eyes, "I don't want to scream. I just want to -"

The words get lodged in her throat and she takes a sip of water. Maybe she's lost it, maybe a year with no movies was too much. Maybe her talent has run dry.

Bellamy considers her words for a long time, looking into the distance. Both their stomachs churn but they don't acknowledge it.

Acting has always been more important than hunger. To them, acting _ was _being fed.

"Do you remember the day you gave me the ring back?"

Clarke's stomach plummets.

"You showed up looking so angry, but I didn't know what I did. You were screaming at me. You even told me to fuck off. All the while, I was-"

"You were quiet."

She remembers now. He was frozen in the doorway, enduring her tantrum. 

Now he hums, smiles. "You gave me the ring back. Threw it behind my shoulder." He winces as though the memory physically pains him. "I didn't understand it then."

The ring made such an awful cracking sound when it hit the coffee table. Glass shattered to pieces, and Bellamy was left to pick them up.

"But I get it now. What we had, Clarke… It was all in our heads. On the outside, we loved each other a lot. Shit," he pauses, laughs with his throat bared to the sky, "I remember when you gutted that pig to prove to my Nana you weren't just a city girl. Right after we got engaged, you remember that?"

She wanted the approval of his family so much. The Blakes laughed, but they accepted her. She was beaming all the way to the set on Monday.

But it was for all the wrong reasons. She loved Bellamy like she was out to prove something.

"I'm saying - we were good, you and I. We just weren't sure who we were. The problems we argued about were the problems we had with ourselves. But you can't fight your reflection, can you? So we fought each other."

They were a two-headed beast, always. Even back at college. Even when they fought. Perfect replicas with different methods.

They fit each other like a glove, until they were both tired of seeing themselves reflected in the person sitting across from them.

Clarke takes a deep breath, and looks at him fully, for the first time.

It's still there, and she can see it. Love like theirs isn't easily forgettable.

"Can you call Emori and the crew? I think I know how to do this."

Bellamy beams at her with a ten thousand watt smile. 

"I'd love to."

This time, they get it right on the first try. She stands in front of him and imagines she's standing in front of her old self.

Then, she lets go.

"Cut! That was perfect!" Murphy exclaims and jumps out of his chair, clapping both of them on their backs. "Blake, I don't care what the fuck you did, but you did good. I wanna see more of that shit. Let's go, people! Serious acting is happening!"

They all laugh but Clarke catches Bellamy's eye and she knows that, without him, there would be no release.

Without him, there wouldn't be anything.

***

"How's everything going across the pond?" Wells asks and the static crackles.

Clarke buttons up her shirt in front of the mirror, her phone pressed to her ear.

"He's changed."

"Changed how?"

She toes the crooked floorboard. A part of the villa's charm is the fact that everything creaks, but it feels glorious and steeped in history.

_ Bellamy must love it._

"He's calmer."

Wells laughs. "And how are you?"

"It's…" Exhausting, draining, the scenes make something in her evaporate with every line she says. She just wants to sleep for twenty years after every take. Then she gets back up in the morning, feeling fractured and ready. "Interesting."

"Just take care of yourself, okay? And if you need me, I'll be there. I love you, Griff."

"Love you too, Wells."

***

The problem is, they're shooting chronologically. 

Scene after scene, they go through the journey just as their characters would.

So by the time they are standing by the pool, they have a month of filming behind them, and Clarke's hands are shaking.

"You don't know when to quit, do you?" Bellamy asks, voice laced with fury. "It's always on to the next thing. Bigger, better shit. How do you even find room in here-" he stabs at her chest and nearly pushes her over - "for me?"

Her bones hurt, fists clenched at her sides. A whisper of a wind, and she'd be knocked back.

"I hate you."

"See, that's the thing, baby. I don't think you do. I think you could hate yourself ten ways till Sunday, but you couldn't hate _ me._"

He knows what he's doing, knows it so well. Every time he's called her _ Princess _ in that tone of voice, every time he's called her out on her bullshit as easy as making coffee… It all compounds.

It all compounds and comes rushing out of her.

"And you're a two-bit loser! Jesus, you wouldn't know what to do with yourself if it weren't for me! All you do is wait and wait for me to come home, like a sick little puppy that's lost its master. You disgust me."

She can see the hurt in his eyes but it makes her feel good.

It's wrong, but it's so good.

She grabs his arm and he shoves his body in her space, close enough to touch.

"Are you gonna deny it? That you would feel pointless without me stroking your ego every damn day?"

It's a challenge, but he refuses to rise to it.

Instead, he deflates.

"So what if I do?"

Something in her shakes.

"What if I do need you?"

There are tears in his eyes, and Clarke breaks open.

He lets go of her arm and she cups his cheek in her hand. Brushes away the tears catching on his eyelashes.

"If you need me, then you have me."

Bellamy's face is an open book. So this is what they couldn't have.

Honesty.

She can almost feel his lips, every inch of her pressed against every inch of him. The orange juice on his breath. The familiar feel of his kiss, right there, at the reach of her fingertips-

"Cut!"

The spell evaporates, but they don't move away. 

Bellamy has trouble blinking the part away, and so does she.

Murphy comes to wax poetic about their performance, but both of them know that it wasn't a performance.

Not really.

***

It didn't take long for barbs to become jagged edges. Their relationship, a play on who could hurt the other more.

Insults were no longer teases. They'd sit to have dinner and manage to say the exact things the other didn't want to hear.

With time, she started going out more. Stayed behind later, dreading the moment of coming home only to find him falling asleep on the couch, waiting for her.

"You're home," he'd always say.

He never, not once, asked her where she'd been.

It went without saying that she never smelled like other men, and paparazzi never caught him kissing anyone else.

They were together physically, but have been cruel roommates emotionally.

Bellamy and Clarke have stopped being BellamyandClarke, instead fracturing into two pieces that no longer sat well together.

When the crash came, Clarke was almost relieved.

"I can't do this anymore."

The circles under his eyes had been steadily growing darker. He was forgetting his lines.

She never knew hers in the first place.

"Yeah, I… I don't think this is working anymore, either."

They chose to forget the days spent learning lines together for their performing arts classes. Tiny idiosyncrasies they used to love, and which now caused frustration. The day when she was too proud to ask her mom for money, and he went out and bought her Mountain Dew with the last dime he had.

Fame had changed them.

Fame had changed _ her. _

Wells was there when she was moving out of the apartment, labelled the boxes all wrong in a rush to get out of there.

Bellamy was gone but his presence lingered.

Later, she laughed. The contents were marked on the inside of the box and she couldn't find a single pair of her underwear, but she found his shirt. 

_ I'm in SF this weekend, you want to meet for lunch?_

She ignored his texts until they stopped coming. 

The first year after their breakup, he was nominated for an Oscar.

She watched the movie alone, and cried. 

With time, Clarke had trained herself to pull the shutters down on him. Seeing him on TV almost didn't hurt. 

Fans would ask if she was seeing him, but she'd never reply to those tweets, instead choosing to focus on something else, and not the memory of a man who made her laugh even when the audition calls weren't pouring in.

It was over long before the two of them knew it would be over.

***

"Are you okay?"

They've all had lunch, but he was nowhere to be found. 

And this time, instead of leaving, she stays.

She finds him on the patio out back. There is a bowl of fresh fruit on the table in front of him. He's holding his chin in his palm and looking to the side.

Something about him is foreign now. He is closed off.

He was never closed off to her.

"Bellamy?"

He shifts in his chair to look at her.

After they'd filmed the dinner scene, she was afraid there'd still be some remnant anger. Afraid he wouldn't be able to talk to her.

Instead, he flipped the switch and asked her what she wanted to eat.

Now, it's like he can't flip the switch because there's no switch to be found.

They never said those things, not out loud. But they meant them. 

Now, he's looking at her and he knows.

He knows she meant it.

"I've got to admit, a part of me always thought I was weighing you down."

Clarke crosses the terrace. She feels bone tired, like there are weights around her ankles, pulling her on down. 

She still has to hear this.

"I hated you more and more with every night I slept on the couch and waited for you. I hated myself, really, because I didn't know what to give you. You stopped wanting whatever I could give.

"When I said I couldn't do it anymore, I never meant to break up with you. But you looked so relieved. What else was I going to do but let you leave?"

He hadn't fought, not for a single second. She said she would move out and Bellamy nodded.

"I don't know if you meant the lines… About being disgusted by my waiting for you. But I wouldn't be surprised. When we were still together, Raven got drunk and told me I was your good little knight.

"I never saw us like that, but it made sense. It was what it was. It wasn't good for a long time, even before we'd broken up."

She can't put her finger on where exactly it went wrong, but there it was suddenly. A dark crack between them, staining everything black, twisting things until they could no longer recognize their relationship.

Love is such a wicked thing when it rots.

"You proposed to me a few months earlier," she starts now, leaning back in her chair. It hurts to say it, but it's got to come out.

If Clarke's learned anything in the past month, it's that she loves him too much to let it fester.

"I said "yes" because I was supposed to."

His hurt no longer brings her joy. Now it just stings, twisting her insides until she can barely breathe. 

Still, he looks less surprised than she expected him to be. A part of him must have known.

"I've always loved you, Bellamy. But I don't think I even loved myself back then. Everything was too much. You were grounding me, and I felt like I would crash the moment I stopped to think."

Their first years in Hollywood are still a blur. The only clear thing is him, taking her hand and helping her navigate the new world.

He had an ease about it, something Clarke never managed.

"When Emori and Murphy called me to read for the part, I read the first half of the script and wanted to say no. Then they told me it ended with a wedding and call me stupid, but I just wanted a happy ending for one version of us, at least."

Bellamy smiles at her, understanding. She wants to reach for him but stops herself, reaches for her dress instead.

"We're old enough to admit that our relationship was doomed to fail. Not because we didn't love each other, but because things changed too fast and we were too young."

Looking at their photos now, they _ were _ too young. 

What a difference three years makes. She feels infinitely wiser, if only in the sense that she knows she's not wise at all.

But she's willing to try to be happy.

"I really, really wanted to marry you, Bell. But not like that. Not as the person I used to be. God, never like that."

She doesn't know who makes the first move but then her hands are full of his body, solid against hers and holding her up. 

He winds an arm behind her legs and pulls her into his lap, kisses the tears off her eyes.

She loves him, loves him so much her heart could burst, and she's tired of fighting this.

She's tired of pretending like she's just reading lines when she's not.

And she's tired of falling asleep thinking she'll never get to have him.

"It's okay, Clarke. It's okay. I've got you," he whispers, wrapping her up in her scent and his warmth. 

Somewhere far away, the night has fallen and they're the only two people in the world.

In the morning, she has to get married to him in the movie, and say goodbye. And she can't do that, not when the first person she could crawl to after the dinner scene was him.

And he threw the covers of his bed open for her.

"I love you, Bellamy. I love you, and I don't give a shit what you think, I just love you and I am so tired-"

He silences her with a kiss and for a second, everything is over.

He tastes like Bellamy, tastes like he was always supposed to. It was poison before, now it's all honey.

Now she _ wants _the honey, wants nothing else.

"We," he whispers against her lips, the rough stubble on his chin scraping against her skin, "are okay."

They share his bed again, just like in the movie, just like after the dinner scene.

Bellamy doesn't kiss her again and it hurts, but it's a good kind of hurt. The kind of hurt that changes things for the better. Like a surgery that takes a bad part out of you.

"Are you awake?"

He hums against the nape of her neck, his arms closed around her waist. They're fully clothed, and it's still the most intimate she'd ever been with him.

_ Undergrad. His hands on the steering wheel. Playing chicken. Neon cuts across his eyes. Something in her stirs._

"Where do we go from here?"

_ First role she got. Bellamy humming a song as he vacuums, unaware that she came back home. Throwing a feast for her with banana bread and not much else. It felt better than a gala._

Bellamy leans his head on his palm, propped up on his elbow. He's different and she loves it. She's different, and she hopes to God he loves it.

"We get married."

_ His question, popped in the middle of a restaurant. His smile. The absence of emotion, just this empty numbness inside her chest. "Of course I will marry you, baby. I love you." _

"When? Tomorrow?"

He smiles down at her, in this quiet way he has now. They could crash and burn again, but she doesn't care.

"If you want to, yeah."

"Do you still have the ring?"

_ 250k dollars. Princess cut. He presented it so proudly that she felt guilty for thinking it was ugly._

Bellamy shakes his head and turns to the side. 

She watches him dig through his nightstand, nearly knocking a photo of Octavia and her kids down.

Then he produces a simple ring out of a plain box. It's silver, and the sapphire on it is beautiful.

"That ring never suited you. I just wanted to show off. I got this one when we were in Florence."

They had a day off and spent it walking around art galleries. Clarke didn't think anything of it when he disappeared for a few minutes, leaving her to recover after a hearty meal by the Arno.

"But you didn't know how I felt. You…"

"I was hoping."

Then he slides off the bed - actually _ slides _ off it and kneels.

She's excitedthrilledoverjoyed, all at once, and she knows now that this is how it was supposed to feel.

But the old Clarke could have never felt it. And for that, she forgives herself.

"Clarke Griffin, will you marry me?"

When he proposed the first time, he delivered a whole speech about her qualities and about how much he loved her. 

Half of the restaurant was in tears.

Now there's no one to see, and nothing to say that they both didn't already know.

"Yes."

Dropping the pretenses, Clarke thinks that this time, they actually have a shot at making their marriage work.

***

They get married on the set. The camera is rolling and Murphy nearly faints.

"Art! This is art!"

They're getting an Oscar for this but Clarke doesn't really care. She's getting a husband out of this and it's all she cares about.

Their vows are simple and they rush the priest through them, Clarke glaring and Bellamy motioning his hand to -

"Speed it up, man. I've been wanting to marry this woman for the last ten years."

They laugh and then they cry, but it's good. It's good. 

The priest pronounces them husband and wife, his tongue breaking over the syllables, and Clarke is pretty sure that this is what she's been waiting for the last three years.

A chance to make Bellamy Blake as happy as he made her.

He still makes her furious sometimes, but now she has a list of all the reasons why their marriage might work:

  1. He loves her.
  2. She loves him.
  3. Once, she gutted a pig to prove she was worthy of him.
  4. One day, many summers ago, when they didn't have enough money to fill up the fridge and he had to dodge fare on his way to auditions, he spent the last dime he had to buy her Mountain Dew because he once overheard her saying she loved it.
  5. Because neither of them are really angry at each other. Not for long. Not at all.


	2. You're Right, I'll Go Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They went from being in love to being strangers and finally, back to two people who understand what the other needs. | Bellamy's POV of actor exes filming a love story just like theirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised Bellamy's POV, didn't I?
> 
> Enjoy!

**_Wikipedia Article About Love with Plenty of Citations,_** Bob Schofield

* * *

_ Skin hunger, the doctors call it._

It's something Bellamy has read in a book somewhere.

_ Skin hunger, people die of it._

He watches the curve of Clarke's neck as she powders her nose at her vanity table. The pearls slip down her bare back. Her perfume haunts him.

The first time he ever saw her, she told him to fuck off. But this silence bears down on him more.

In an hour, she'll take his hand on the red carpet. The cameras will go off and she'll pet his arm, answering the questions and throwing her best rehearsed pair of _ fuck me _ eyes.

And Bellamy will pretend like things have never been better.

"When's the limo coming?" she asks, putting on her earrings. The diamonds glisten in the light. This apartment is nothing like the apartment they used to live in.

Back then, they struggled to make rent, but they had something.

Now Clarke's gaze is vacant.

Bellamy checks his watch, shifting forward on the bed to come to seated. When they were done fucking, she just got up and started getting ready.

"Fifteen minutes."

Clarke hums, flashes him an easy smile. Her ring catches light, and Bellamy swallows hard. He was so proud, striding into Tiffany and buying the most expensive ring.

"This'll be good for us, Bell," she levels with him. "We'll make the headlines."

"Your movies make the headlines constantly."

Clarke rolls her eyes. "You know what I mean."

Three hours later, a long-legged reporter casts a shadowy glance at him. He knows her name, and he knows what she wants.

"How is everything going with you and Clarke, Bellamy?"

His fiancee is on the other side of the room, throwing back shots of tequila with Raven Reyes. The only time she lets him really touch her is when she's drunk, and Bellamy pretends like he isn't hungry for anything she wants to give him.

"Fine."

Echo laughs. "If you need me, you know where to find me."

Transactional. Everything is in Hollywood.

*

The first time he lays eyes on Clarke Griffin, Bellamy wants to kiss her or kill her. He's not sure which just yet.

She's shouting up a storm, and the entirety of their class goes silent.

"Jesus, you think you're hot shit, don't you? Strutting in here like you own the place, when you're nothing but wooden, you-"

It's supposed to be romantic. They're playing Romeo and Juliet, even if she's wearing her chucks and he hasn't managed to take his jacket off before she started screaming at him.

"And what, now you're not gonna say anything?"

Her cheeks are flushed, voice nearly on the verge of cracking. Impossibly, Bellamy wants to laugh.

"I let toddlers handle their own tantrums."

The script hits him in the head.

"How the _ fuck _dare you?"

"Easy," he drawls, kicking the script back to her. _ Now _ she's pissed him off. "I'm not gonna kiss your ass just because your mom is Abby Griffin."

She moves towards him impossibly fast, stabbing her finger into his chest. "I _ earned _this part."

"Prove it."

So she kisses him.

Right then and there, Clarke Griffin furiously kisses him, and Bellamy is helpless. His arms come up around her immediately, and he deepens the kiss. A part of him wants to know where this leads; a part of him doesn’t want to back down from a challenge. 

By the time they part, she's smirking victoriously. Her thumb comes up to his lower lip. She wipes her lipstick off his skin.

"There. Could a bad actor do that?"

*

Their relationship is rotting and Bellamy knows it.

In the morning, she drinks coffee and checks her phone. Even when she's wearing his shirt, she does her best not to look at him. It’s like she’s afraid, but he doesn’t understand why. 

Bellamy, for his part, drags himself to the set and hangs his head when he can't remember the lines.

"It's always been you and me," Harper says, her hand gentle on his cheek and he leans into the touch.

God, he misses her so much.

"Cut!" Raven throws off her headphones, her brace clinking as she speeds towards him. "What the fuck, Blake? You were supposed to tell her you're breaking up with her."

The whole world knows it's over before the two of them. 

When he comes back home from the set, the apartment is empty. The entirety of Los Angeles is glistening under his feet and Clarke is nowhere to be found.

_ The shoot is running late,_ he tells himself and heats up pad thai.

_ She just forgot to text_, he thinks when the screen of his phone stays black, no matter how long he stares at it.

By the time midnight rolls around, he is all out of excuses.

Clarke wakes him up with the clinking of her heels on tiles, her clumsy hands trying to hit the key slot and failing. Once, twice, three times.

By the time she makes it through the door, Bellamy hates himself.

She looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

"You're up."

Clarke hangs her head, heavy. Her feet must be sore, there are patches of red by the skin of her toes. She hates wearing heels.

"Do you want something to eat?"

Clarke shakes her head, averting her gaze. "I already ate. Sorry, my phone died."

It pings two seconds later and Bellamy smiles, tamps down everything he wants to say.

"It's okay, it happens."

*

"Are you ashamed of me?"

She stops chewing. They're in the living room, catching up on one TV show or another, and the question just slips.

"Why would you ask me that?"

Bellamy shrugs. "We don't go out often anymore. You're- you're off doing your work, and I'm doing indie stuff. It's not like anyone would expect us to be together."

Clarke throws her head back, the noodles going cold in her plate.

"It's not about them, Bellamy. You do amazing work, and I'm proud of you. I just- Well, you don't want to go out anymore."

Whenever he thinks of the parties, he thinks of the camera flashes and booze. He's had enough of that chaos to last him a lifetime, and he's not even thirty yet.

He loves the work, but he doesn't love the marketing. The parts they are made to play - perfect celebrities who can party until three and get up at six to shoot.

"It's not my scene."

Clarke frowns. "Then don't go around accusing me of being _ ashamed _of you."

"I wasn't-"

"You were! You don't want to go out and then suddenly it's my fault for wanting to have fun! I can't just babysit you all the time. I have a life, Bellamy. Some things are just expected of actors. It's not my fault you want to be original by being a recluse."

"Oh, I'm a recluse?" He laughs, bitter. "Sorry, Princess. We can't all swallow pills to make up for the lack of a personality."

This is what they do now. 

She pretends like she doesn't know what _ recluse _means in his vocabulary (fifteen years, lonely kid, baby sister, dying mother), and he pries apart her insecurities for sport.

"Not fair, Bellamy." Her voice cracks. "That's really not fair."

The sight of her on the verge of tears makes him want to wrap his arms around her. But the disgust in her eyes pushes him away.

It's two hours of screaming after that. 

His lungs hurt, and she's crying from the sheer force of her fury. They've both said things they can't unsay. Their next door neighbor knocks to see if they’re fighting.

"No, just practicing lines," Clarke says, smiles at the man. Her voice is so calm that Bellamy wants to laugh. "I'm sorry if we got you worried there."

When she closes the door, Bellamy looks at her for the longest time.

"Shit, Clarke, the best part you ever played really was yourself."

  


*

"Pass me the salt, please."

Clarke is wearing her best dress, and he's wearing an obscenely expensive tux. It’s all supposed to be good, but even her mom is eyeing them warily. 

"Of course." He slides the salt shaker towards her. "Anything else?"

Abby Griffin is a stern woman. She has a steely gaze that reminds him so much of Clarke's. And just like Clarke once used to, she loves him.

"Bellamy, how is your new movie going? Clarke hasn't told me a lot about it."

"She wouldn't, would she?"

It comes rushing out of him before he can stop it. Everyone's forks pause above their plates. 

Abby cocks an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, he's kidding," Clarke interjects, placing a hand on top of his. Her grip is like a vise; her knuckles are white. “Aren’t you, babe?”

"Sure, kidding. The movie is fine, Abby. Thank you for asking."

Outside, she whirls around on him, gets in his face so close that he can imagine kissing the fury off her features. His Clarke, all cold metal now.

"What the fuck was _ that _about?"

He grits his teeth. _ You. Me. Our relationship, which isn't working, and I don't know how to fix it_. 

"Nothing."

"Oh, no," she hisses, "Don't 'nothing' _ me,_ Bellamy. If you have something to say, say it."

"Fine, do you want me to say it?"

She raises her chin petulantly, motioning for him to go ahead. They used to tease each other constantly, fight for the sport of it. 

This is different.

"_Y__ou're _ the problem, Clarke. You don't even give a fuck anymore. Coffee in the morning, pills at night. You're a fucking movie mill, but you're lost, aren't you?"

He pinches the bridge of his nose, feeling a migraine coming on. The words are all wrong, but they're the only ones he has.

"The perfect Hollywood princess, rising to her mom's legacy. If you're not churning out ten movies a year, are you really living?"

He watches hurt flash across her face. For a second, he _ wants _her to blow up. 

He wants her to say something, anything. To show that it's still her in there, the girl who made notes in all of his books and laughed when he pretended to be annoyed. 

(The notes were his favorite parts.)

Then, Clarke deflates. She leans against a parking post and smiles at him, watery.

"This is hard for me too. Can't you see that, Bellamy? I'm just trying to do something worthwhile."

She knuckles away at the tear tracks forming on her cheeks.

"You're cruel. I'm sorry if I can't be the person you fell in love with."

"That's not what-"

She stops him with the motion of her palm. "It's okay. Let's just go home."

That night, she curls up into him in her sleep. He knows it's not going to last much longer.

*

It's funny how when you're happy, you don't even think about your relationship. But when you're stuck in a loveless place, it's all you can think about.

Bellamy finds himself running scenarios on his way to auditions. Analyzes every gaze Clarke sends him in passing. Drags out a box of old photos under the bed one afternoon, looking for the moment when it all broke down.

He finds the crack somewhere between the moment they realized they were really going to make it, and the moment where they stopped keeping count of movies and money.

When she comes back home one night, smelling like perfume and booze, he hangs his head and admits it.

"I can't do this anymore."

It comes out wrong and he wants to backtrack but then he sees the relief in her eyes. She really did feel trapped with him. The realization makes him want to smile, makes him want to say: _ It’s okay, you’re right, I’ll go now. _

He’s never wanted to make her feel like this. 

"Give me a few days, and I'll find another place," he offers, but she's quicker. Neither of them want to fight. His chest feels like it's caving in, and he desperately wants to cry but the tears aren't coming.

"I'll sleep at Wells' place."

Just like that, it's over.

The fights, the emptiness… All gone. 

In a few days, even the smell of her perfume evaporates. He doesn't look at her parts of the apartment. Chooses not to see her toothbrush.

When she comes to get her things, he goes out with Raven.

"Here's to being single and amazing," she proposes, lifting up her beer bottle. Bellamy swallows hard but smiles.

"Single and amazing."

After, he finds himself wanting to stay friends with Clarke.

They were always friends at the core of it, even before the bickering turned into sex at college, before they started studying lines by whispering them between bouts of dirty talk.

He sends a few messages after she moves to San Francisco, sends them when she moves back to LA. 

Clarke never responds. After a while, his schedule is packed anyway. There are people that _ want _ to see him in his life, now.

He even briefly dates Echo, but leaves at the first sign of turmoil. Kissing her is a lot like kissing Clarke; they feed off of each other's insecurities.

He gets nominated for an Oscar, and Clarke smiles when the reporters ask her about it.

"It's a great movie," she says on the TV and Bellamy changes the channel.

It's not that he doesn't love her anymore - a part of him will always love her - but he still can't remember the good parts without coming back around to the emptiness.

With time, he understands what went wrong. 

Things were moving too fast. He wasn't sure of himself, but it was hard to fight your own reflection. Despite all his desire to say it wasn't so, he and Clarke have always been too similar. Born with chips on their shoulders. Would've fought the world if it came down to it.

Once, she even told him that they were like a two-headed beast. 

They were drinking at a frat party, and she was wearing this goofy smile that made him want to kiss her senseless.

"We're way more similar than you think, Bellamy," she tells him, conspiratorial. She leans in so close that he thinks he can see the lightning flash in her eyes. "It's why we can't stand each other."

"Who says I can't stand you, Princess?"

Later that night, two fingers deep in her under her frilly skirt and pawing at his shoulders as he made her chant his name, Clarke admits, "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was-"

He doesn't let her finish the sentence. Instead, he kisses the confession off her mouth.

These days, he knows she was right all along. 

So when Murphy gets in touch with him about an angsty drama with exes who end up getting married, Bellamy says "yes" as soon as he reads the script.

"It's a great script, Murph. Clarke's going to love it."

These days, he's sure of his place in Hollywood. In the world. No longer thirsty for validation, no longer willing to endure senseless interviews prying him apart for shock value.

He just wants to make movies.

"We'll see. She might be out of our budget."

"So cut my pay," he shoots back. "You need her on this. Trust me."

Bellamy has no idea who Clarke is today, having dropped off the face of the Earth, but one thing's for sure:

Both of them always wanted to do work they could be proud of.

*

She's different.

She steps into the dark hallway of the Tuscan villa and somehow lights the place up. It's been three years, and they've been good on her.

Her gaze is no longer sharp. Now it's steady, like there isn't a thing in the world that could move her anymore.

"You look good," he says, with all the intention behind it. She does look good. He's never told her that enough.

Now she looks good and calm and he is happy for her.

She's thrown off for a second and then she's shooting him a small smile, getting wrapped up in all the business of making a movie.

It's weird that they've never made a movie together but here, it fits. 

The days are long and the nights pass too slowly. They ultimately always find each other's gazes over bowls full of oranges and apples at the breakfast buffet.

Bellamy catches her humming sometimes, when she thinks no one's looking. They get an afternoon off and she spends it in the garden, reading.

The circles under her eyes are more prominent, but this time she does reach for him when she spots him.

"Come here. Keep me company, please."

He tells her about his life, the production company he's starting with Raven. All the projects on their list, the long days which are sure to follow when he comes back home.

"But we're in a spell right now, aren't we?" she teases, smiling at him and it's easy. It's so easy, being with this Clarke whose energy makes him unwind instantly, makes his heart take root in his chest. "We don't have to break it just yet."

Before, she used to come with a hint of danger. Just something around the edges, like a blink separated her from turning into a third category tornado.

Now she feels steady, even when she disagrees with him.

"I'm not going to play it like that," she tells Murphy when they're supposed to film the dinner scene. Their characters have been broken for a while, and it's all supposed to boil over.

Bellamy and Murphy think she should be screaming.

Clarke begs to differ.

"If it's over like you say it is, why would she scream at him? She's made up her mind. What is there to scream about?"

Bellamy is not a fool; he knows she's pouring as much of herself into her character as he is in his. But her words no longer hurt. It's a wound scarred over.

She does her thing and he watches her, calm and defeated, ask for salt.

"Is something wrong?"

He struggles to find the bitterness with which to say it. "Is anything right?"

It is. It is. It is.

*

After, she knocks on his door.

There's a glass of freshly pressed orange juice in her hand and a sheepish smile on her lips.

"I couldn't sleep."

He lets her in not because he doesn't know how to say no, but because he _ likes _ her. 

She's no longer any of the Clarkes she used to be. Not a part to play for her mom, for him, for herself.

She's just _ Clarke_.

"If I can get in on that orange juice, you can come in."

They share the orange juice, laughing and tiptoeing around each other until she yawns and crashes on his pillow. There's a second in which she closes her eyes and breathes in, and Bellamy knows he's in love.

He's in love again, and it's a good feeling.

"You wanna sleep here?" he offers, running a hand through his hair and observing her. She nods, small, and he covers her with a blanket.

Maybe he dreams it but when he slides in next to her, unable to keep his hands to himself, she whispers, "I love you."

He only hugs her closer.

*

They have a Sunday off and he drives them to Cinque Terre. All the houses are peppered against the hillside, seconds away from toppling into the sea.

Clarke breathes out, "It's wonderful."

They look like a pair of American tourists, tried and true. 

She wears shorts and a hoodie, plants her trusted Wayfarers on top of her curls, and he tries not to look ridiculous with a hat that says _ ITALY _ in big, bold letters.

"Ice cream?" he offers, stopping by a gelato vendor situated against one of the pastel houses Octavia can't stop liking on Instagram.

Clarke beams at him. "Per favore e grazie."

Her tongue turns blue from the currant, and he sticks his cap on top of her curls when she insists that he takes her photo.

It's an odd day, watching her marvel at the sight of waves breaking against the coastline, eyes closed and face turned completely towards the blue.

He wants to stay in that moment forever. Watching her, finally at peace. 

The taste of gelato still on his lips, hers still blue from it.

"Come here, Bellamy," she beckons him with a motion of her hand, leaving her fingers stretched out towards him, sunlight reflecting off of her skin. "I want you to see this."

_ I'm already seeing everything I need_, he wants to say but he swallows it. Smiles. Comes closer and wraps an arm around her waist when she nestles into his side.

The seagulls chant overhead and he knows this is it. 

This is how it was always supposed to be.

*

In Florence, he gets a ring.

It's a simple thing, nothing like the ring he first got her. It reminds him of their day on the coast, the easy smiles, the laughter. All that liquid gold in her hair.

He has no idea when he'll show it to her. He may not even ask her to marry him again. Even if he shows it to her as a friend, it'll be enough.

He carries it in his pocket like a secret, grinning at her. She's waiting in the restaurant by the Arno, her feet up on the fence and looking at him inquisitively.

"What's got you smiling?"

"You," he shoots back, making her laugh. It's all honey, it's all good.

*

Love is a thing he's never been able to figure out, but watching her press her hands to her mouth when he kneels, Bellamy thinks it's fine.

Maybe he doesn't have to figure it out.

Maybe he just has to love her.

"Clarke Griffin, will you marry me?"

He knows he didn't do well before. He knows he didn't give her what she needed. He was selfish and young and it's no excuse.

He just wants the privilege of loving her again.

She smiles and cries and says yes, ten thousand times over, until she's mouthing it into his skin and he's kissing all the words off her lips. They kiss like they've been thirsty for it, and she still tastes like orange juice, pretty sweet, just a little bitter.

Murphy laughs when they tell him they want a real priest to ordain the wedding scene, but he doesn't say no.

She's wearing her best chucks under her wedding gown and Bellamy feels tears pricking at his eyes when she finally says, "I do."

They have a long road ahead of them.

A life full of premieres and red carpets. Long nights and queasy mornings.

But looking at her hand in his, he thinks they're going to be just fine after all. 

They'll do it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gotta share a few thoughts now that this fic is finished:
> 
> 1\. No one is the hero here. I wanted to make that clear (although you're free to interpret this fic whichever way you'd like). Clarke was pushing Bellamy away, he didn't think about what she needed, and both of them struggled with their own insecurities. And I think that's beautiful, in a way. No one fucked up, but both did simultaneously. Growth is the cure. 
> 
> 2\. What I really wanted to be visible in this chapter was how they started reaching out to each other. Consciously made the effort to spend time and understand the other. In my opinion, you can't top that. Love _is_ attention.
> 
> 3\. Jesus, I miss the post season 2 hope and optimism. Please read Nat's canon divergent ["make my messes matter (make my chaos count)" fic.](https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/50273087) It changed my life; I went on [a rant.](https://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com/post/188545043732)
> 
> **Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought; comments and kudos are my favorite thing!**
> 
> You can also [reblog the photoset on Tumblr.](https://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com/post/188475974722)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, and thank you to the organizers behind Bellarke Bingo! This was like a wild cat in a bag, and I had the time of my life writing it. 
> 
> Can I just say that I loved weird, specific filmmakers Emori and Murphy? Writing them was so fun, even if the rest of the fic broke my heart.
> 
> **Bellamy's POV is coming in a few days so stay tuned!**
> 
> I also have to mention Pepperish's amazing [Meet Me in the Afterglow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20585855) exes fic, if you're in the mood for something emotionally devastating and beautiful. 
> 
> P.S. Come talk to me on [Tumblr @marauders-groupie](https://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com).


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